Cellphone selfies may distort facial structures, boost demand for plastic surgery: Study
Researchers have found that cellphone selfies can distort facial features which may be driving an uptick in requests for plastic surgery. The findings were reported in the journal, 'Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery'.
The results have highlighted an unexpected consequence of social media and the need for plastic surgeons to discuss this phenomenon with their patients.
"If young people are using selfies as their only guide, they may be coming to plastic surgeons to fix problems that don't exist except in the world of social media," said study leader Bardia Amirlak, M.D., Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at UT Southwestern.
Dr Amirlak explained that patients increasingly use photographs they've taken with a smartphone camera to discuss their goals with a plastic surgeon. There's a documented relationship, he added, between the increase in selfie photographs and an increase in requests for rhinoplasty -- or surgery to alter the appearance of the nose -- particularly among younger patients.
However, because cameras can distort images, especially when photographs are taken at close range, .
To investigate how selfies might alter the appearance, Dr Amirlak and his colleagues worked with 30 volunteers: 23 women and seven men.
The researchers took three photographs of each person -- one each from 12 inches and 18 inches away with a cellphone to simulate selfies taken with a bent or straight arm, and a third from 5 feet with a digital single-lens reflex camera, typically used in plastic surgery clinics. The three images were taken in the same sitting under standard lighting conditions.
The selfies showed significant distortions. On average, the nose appeared 6.4 per cent longer on 12-inch selfies and 4.3 per cent longer on 18-inch
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